Fresh raspberries with potato and coconut

Some time back, I read in a chef's whose name I can't recall interview that for his last meal's dessert, he'd have whipped cream and raspberries. I found it truly intriguing, as I was so accustomed to creating and eating complex dishes, that it dawned on me- I was sidelining the quality of the ingredients.

I more or less haven't used commercial fruit purees and frozen fruit since.

And so as soon as I got my hands on fresh raspberries, I couldn't stop thinking about a nice, raspberry ice cream from my days back in Australia. Since most of my dishes are intended to be exploratory in nature, it was paired with house made coconut milk (you need to ditch those commercial cans for this real thing right here) and I feel that because I associate coconut with tropics and lightness, it boosted the dish in terms of freshness even more.

Filling some raspberries with a salted caramel made with coconut water, palm sugar and a bit of cream, I left the remainder of the coconut cream to 'sediment'- the film of coconut cream floats on top, forming a nice, concentrated and flavour packed disk.

Now I can’t possibly forget the cream, can I? As per usual, I whipped some house-harvested clotted cream and seasoned it with lemon myrtille. To add a variation of crunch to the dish, I added 3 components. It may seem contradictory to what I mentioned earlier, but another thing I’ve learnt over time is that in the end, what truly matters is how tasty and fulfilling the dish is. Juxtaposing this to a lot of other traditional dishes like a halo-halo, where lots of different components mumbling with each other is the highlight, one’s dish can go either way. What holds true in both is cases is respecting you ingredients.

Coming back to crunch- I made a raspberry ice disk from clear raspberry water, and added the element of potato. As it turns out, potatoes go surprisingly well with raspberries. Some fried potato chips and a potato tuile on the dish and it’s good to go.